A Flower of North Africa

Hi readers. I know, I've been remiss and left you without a post in awhile. But I have been very busy of late. Not so busy that I haven't gotten to see some wonders of Tunisia though.

A lot of colors on one wall

The title of my post is metaphoric. But also, at least in April, it's literal. There are so many flowers of so many colors in Tunisia. It's gorgeous. I mean, sometimes you are just walking along streets and there are not flowers everywhere. But when you find flowers, they impress. Go flowers!

I have a lot to tell you about.

MARP

Never heard of MARP. Of course not. I invented it. I have been working very hard on Math Action Role Playing. This past weekend, a group of kids got to try it out. In some ways, it is like tabletop role playing games. But there is a key difference! When the characters attempt something, their success is not determined by rolling dice. Instead, the players solve competitive mathematics questions. It's been a lot of work in the last month to get all of it together. And then the first group only used a tiny fraction of what I had prepared. But I didn't have any problems with running out of problems!

Tunis

Alrica and I are living in Tunis, though we are not in the main downtown portion of it. We are staying in a neighborhood called either El Aouina (if it is coming from the Arabic) or L'Aouina (if it is coming from the French.) It is a nice place to live, plenty of nearby grocery stores and restaurants, and all very affordable. The people are nice, and most everyone speaks French and the Tunisian dialect of Arabic. A few people speak English and we are getting by pretty well.

Here in L'Aouina they have inflatable men not just to sell cars or mattresses, but medical services.

We have gone into downtown Tunis. There is the Medina. Much like we experienced in Morocco, this is the old city, originally built by the Arabs. The streets are narrow and filled with shops and people selling fruits, clothing, spices, foods, wooden crafts, and much, much more. We stopped at a place to get chapati for lunch near this lovely mural.

Scenic place to eat

But right near the place we were eating a man was selling something in fabric, maybe dresses. I'm not sure, as there was a crowd of women around the goods, holding up different fabrics, inspecting them. I bring this up because of the man who was selling them. Like many places in the medina, he was calling out something in Arabic, over and over, to attract buyers. I didn't understand his particular words, but in cadence, stress, number of syllables, basically in meter, it was exactly like he was saying "Swiper no swiping. Swiper no swiping." I couldn't help by say "Oh man!" (I know that anyone reading this who either wasn't a child or didn't have children in the right time frame will not recognize a Dora the Explorer reference. But I suspect many of you will.)

This is the Bab Al-Bhar, one of the gates to the old city, the Medina

If you don't know what chapati is, maybe you know roti, the unleavened bread from the Indian subcontinent. That's what chapati is, it's a local version of roti. In many places, you can see the men in the restaurant rolling it out and cooking it. And then they make sandwiches with it. It is all quite delicious. But there is one issue for Alrica.

When you order chapati or french tacos or almost anything that is vaguely sandwich like, you get a lot of options of what you want put on your chapati or naan or tortilla. One of the spreads they generally include is harissa. This is the basis of many foods in North Africa and it is made from chili peppers and paprika and olive oil. So yeah, it's spicy. Another common spread is Algerian Sauce. Much like how Italian dressing isn't from Italy and French fries are really from France, Algerian Sauce isn't really from Algeria. It comes from France or Belgium. But it does include harissa as a major ingredient. So, it is also spicy.

View from the Central Market of Tunis, where are rows of fruits, veggies, nuts, meats, cheeses, and more.

You can ask to have your sandwiches without those sauces, and if you are, like Alrica, spice-averse, of course you do ask to go without. But once they put all the other spreads on your round chapati or tortilla, they grab a spoon to smear it all around. It's the same spoon they used to make the last sandwich before yours and who knows how many before that. It isn't washed in between. And aside from Alrica, harissa and Algerian sauces are hot commodities with sandwich purchasers. (See what I did there?) So that spoon always has harissa on it. So your sandwich, french taco, or makloub is going to be at least a little bit spicy. (Or as Alrica would say, "too spicy.")

This is mild in comparison to other things out of my historical scope

It is always fascinating to see what is normal in one place that isn't normal where you are from. Seeing some of the butcher shops, I was thinking how kids who grow up here are not going to be squeamish about seeing dead animals. You see hanging cow, decapitated heads of sheep, meat with skin still on it, cooked fish heads, raw fish heads, but no roly poly fish heads.

That blue ice cream flavor is chewing gum. Why is that so much less appealing than bubble gum?

But you also see beautiful fabrics, intricate works of art, and stunning flowers. I don't only mean flowers for sale, but just the ones that grow in the city.

It's like a waterfall of beauty.

In the medina is one of the oldest mosques in Tunisia, the Ez-Zitouna Mosque. You are not allowed inside if you are non-Muslim. But you can walk along the outside. The thing is, unless you pay attention to the doors, you don't realize you are walking the perimeter of a huge mosque. There are shops everywhere around it, so it looks the same as everywhere else in the Medina. Sometimes you get a lucky view though.

The minaret of the Ez-Zitouna Mosque

There is also a beautiful cathedral in the center of Tunis, though it is outside the Medina in the more recent additions to the city. It's called the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Olivia of Palermo. There are times you can go into it. Unfortunately, when we were there, it was not one of those times.

Two, two, two saints for the price of one!

Carthage

Just east of Tunis is the city of Carthage. In modern times, this is a beachside community with many nice homes and some hotel/spas. But it is also a historic city. When I was in college, I took a course in Roman history, cause, you know, gen ed requirements. One big topic we covered was the Punic Wars. These were wars between Rome, based in modern day Italy, and the kingdom of Carthage, which was centered here in Tunisia. For a good stretch of years, Carthage was the primary enemy of Rome, both vying for supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe you've heard of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants. (That actually happened.) Hannibal was a Punic General. Punic means he was from Carthage. The Romans didn't call the Carthaginian Carthaginians. They called them the Poeni, because the Carthaginians were originally from Phoenicia.

This is the Magon Complex, right beside the Gulf

Anyway, after a few embarrassing defeats, including being caught completely by surprise by Hannibal coming down from the Alps with elephants, Rome did defeat Carthage. Then they sacked the city, leveling it. Ha, we'll make the world forget these people ever existed!. Then, about a hundred years later the Romans realized that the site of Carthage was a major strategic place to build a city. So they had to rebuild what they had destroyed, or really, build on top of it.

I wonder what it said when all the pieces were there

That's why, when you visit Carthage today, you see a mix of Roman ruins and Punic ruins. Often they are right beside each other, or the Punic ruin is literally under the Roman one.

Remnants of a 2500 year old naval base

We visited several sites in Carthage. We went to the Punic Ports. The Carthagianians were clever. They had a port you entered from the south. It looked just like a commercial port. But at the north end of it, they had build a circular channel with an island in the middle. Here, on the island, they had a large naval base. They kept their warships in the circular channel and so pirates, Romans, and other baddies, didn't realize there was a military presence there. If they raided the port, suddenly, as if from nowhere, here came the Punic Navy. Take that you Mediterranean miscreants!

Original Punic Neighborhood on Byrsa Hill

We also visited Byrsa Hill. (Sometimes also spelled Birsa Hill or Bursa Hill. We all agree on the spelling of Hill.) This is where Carthage was founded, and the story goes like this: The year is 814 BCE. The king of Tyre (which is part of the Phoenician Empire) kills his brother. But the brother's wife, Princess Elyssa, flees with several other faithful followers. The Phoenicians are all about sailing, so she flees by boat. And she comes to modern day Tunisia. Here, she buys some land from the locals, up on this hill. But she can only afford as much land as might be covered by the skin of an ox. The word Bursa in Greek means "skin of a cow" and that's where the hill gets its name. Princess Elyssa does super well, growing her land from the size of an ox's skin to the whole hill, the whole area, and eventually an empire (though that part was probably after Elyssa was no more.) There is also a myth about King Hiarbas insisting he was going to marry Elyssa and she couldn't stop it from happening, so she killed herself. Though the history King Hiarbas ruled Carthage about 750 years after its founding. So maybe this legend has some confused names.

Standing in what was once a library, Punic neighborhood in foreground, Gulf of Tunis in background

If you are into literature, perhaps you've read the Aeneid by Virgil. Aeneus lands in Carthage early in the story, and the queen, who is supposed to be Princess Elyssa, though Virgil renames her Dido, falls in love with him and wants him to stay and rule Carthage with her. But no, alas, he has a destiny to fulfill and he goes away and lands in modern day Italy. And his descendants will be the Romans.

All the detached capitals from various columns

That was a big digression into myth and legend, but it is the myth and legend that surrounds Carthage. And we visited Byrsa Hill. In addition to Punic ruins, and Roman ruins, there is also the tomb of Saint Louis from the much more recent 13th century CE. This is a bit misleading, because Louis isn't buried there. He did die in Tunisia.

The tomb/not tomb of St. Louis

He was the king of Franch. King Louis IX to be precise. And he was big on the crusades. He thought if he invaded in modern day Tunisia, he would break the Arab lines that extended across North Africa. He came and conquered and worked hard to convert the Muslims to being Catholics. That didn't go so well. A big bout of dysentery swept through his ranks, killing many of his warriors and maybe killing him too. Though modern forensics conducted on his preserved jawbone (because you know, you preserve these things when people are saints) indicates he actually died of scurvy. Apparently, Louis told his troops that the fruits of these heathen people were cursed by God and should not be eaten. What happens when you don't eat anything with vitamin C for long enough? You die of scurvy. Sometimes declaring that you know what God approves of and curses doesn't lead to the best ends for you or your followers.

That pillar once held up a roof in the bathhouse.

We also visited the Baths of Antoninus. These are from the Roman era in the region. The archaeological site includes the baths but also much more. There are old Punic tombs. And there are some Roman homes in which you can still see some of the mosaics on the floors.

Consider its age, this mosaic's in good shape.

The baths themselves must have been gigantic. What remains today is the basement, but you can see the occasional pillar from the first floor. It extends so high, the baths must have had quite a lofty ceiling. And there were warm pools, hot pools, cool pools, gymnasium rooms, and rooms for watching entertainments.

Don't look! Alrica's in the bath!... house... basement

Hammam Sousse

Tunis is on the conveniently enough named Gulf of Tunis which connects to the Mediterranean Sea. But just around one more peninsula one finds the Gulf of Hammamet. There is a stretch of the shore along this gulf, from the city of Hammamet to the the city of Sousse, that is known for its white sand, beautiful seas, and for lots and lots of resorts. There are beach homes to rent, but there are also the all-inclusive resorts.

I love the red flowers against the white wall.

April isn't really the busy season, but it isn't a non-season either. Alrica and I stayed for two nights at one of these resorts in Hammam Sousse, which is, as you might have guessed, between Hammamet and Sousse. (Much closer to Sousse.)

Mosaic on raised platform along the sidewalk in Sousse

It was okay. I will say, the Gulf was gorgeous. The view from our balcony was inspiring. The beach was nice, though it was a bit too cold for me to want to go into the gulf itself. We did enjoy swimming pools. We played ping-pong, conveniently not keeping score so each of us can believe we won. The food was good, not amazing.

The view from our balcony

It would be a very convenient family destination, particularly in the warm parts of the year when swimming in the Gulf would be very comfortable. It is quite flat going well out into the water, so a nice place to play without fear of being swept out to sea. And there were vendors who would take you on speedboat rides or you could be in a parasail. You could rent quad bikes too. Plus there were other vendors to take you out to the desert where you could ride camels. (We had just recently done so in Morocco, so we were good.)

At the harbor in Sousse you could do a party boat ride. Masts, no sails.

We also spent some time in the city of Sousse where we had to catch our train back home. (I have an amazing coincidence story to tell you about that.) Sousse was vibrant and fun, much smaller than the medina of Tunis, but still packed with shopping and food. I loved the chapati I got there.

Old City wall of Sousse with what appears to be Neptune on it

The train home was over two hours late arriving in the station. So late, in fact, that the people who were waiting for the next train, which was also delayed, all crammed on to our train when it got there. As such, I wasn't able to sit with Alrica. I wasn't even able to sit in the same train car with her.

Alrica ended up sitting next to a man from the United States. He was in his early thirties. But the amazing coincidence was how much his path matched our daughters. He majored in Middle Eastern Studies. He learned to speak Arabic. He did a semester abroad in Amman, Jordan, and one in Rabat, Morocco. He was selected for the Critical Language Scholarship where he spent ten weeks in Dushanbe, Tajikistan learning Persian.

Our daughter is studying international relations with a focus on Middle Eastern studies. She received a Critical Language Scholarship for this summer. And she is going to Dushanbe, Tajikistan to learn Persian. She is applying to spend a semester abroad next year in Rabat, Morocco. It was a fascinating couple of hours for Alrica to talk to this man who was basically on our daughter's path, but about fifteen years further along.

My seat mate was an older man who spoke French, and he slept for most of the ride. But I listened to an audio book. So good on me too!

People talk about undiscovered treasures. I am not sure if Tunisia is everyone's sort of place to be, but we sure like it. In many ways, it is similar to Morocco. But you don't have the people trying to get everything they can from tourists. The cost of food and lodging is low. And the weather and landscapes are beautiful, at least in April.